On Monday, serving a life sentence in the NWTC book buyback
line next to my dear friend (who, by the way, had once warned me “the devil
lives in that line” – still not sure if I believe you, dear friend - but thank you for buying me a beverage and pastry as I truly believe you might have been put on this earth simply to ensure that I am fed!) brought about the
feeling of a typical end of semester weekday.
Little did I suspect the danger that lie ahead in my work week. Now that the semester is over, I am able to
put in more hours at the law office where I work. With extra time on my hands, I have begun to
take on more duties, yet I am still required to handle the day to day
administrative tasks. I will never
complain about any of those tasks, as I am thankful to be gainfully employed. However, a few incidents that occurred this
week led me to seek the truth about the war on women in the workplace.
Everyone is talking about it, in regard to what happened with the State of
Wisconsin Equal Pay Act. Though I choose
to keep my political views to myself, I
have a few non-political thoughts about this.
First of all, we are fortunate in the country to have both state and
federal law. There is already a federal
law in place that covers anything thought to be lost with the state’s equal pay
for equal work act, so I am not worried about it. However, having mostly positive experiences
in my work life, I often felt this “War on Women” was a myth, a fairytale of
some sort. After all, I have always felt
I have been fairly compensated in my career based on my skill,
responsibilities, and such. This week,
however, I came to know my own meaning on the “war”, and it begins and ends with office
equipment. I didn’t even notice the
analogy until my friend Jolene pointed it out to me - thank you!! In industrial jobs, workers are trained how
to handle tools, run equipment, they are taught safety first. However, in an office, no one goes through
safety training with us regarding the equipment we use daily. Nor does anyone (including OSHA) feel they
would be of any danger to the common person.
Maybe that is the operative phrase, as I have never been a common
person. Known to run into open doors,
shut doors, steel poles, trip over “nothing” and fall to the ground randomly,
miss a step and slide down two flights like I am on the Olympic luge team, I am
definitely not graceful. (And just an
FYI for those of you chuckling, I am sober and wide awake when these incidents
occur!)
It started with a fax machine. For some reason, I had to fax a
document. (Again, thank you Joey for the
comic relief in this one by asking me “Does anyone even fax anymore?”) I had asked if it could be scanned and
attached to an email, but apparently the entity I needed to send the document
to, which shall remain nameless to protect the innocent, is incapable of
receiving emails. Perhaps they don’t
have enough employees to man the email account, which doesn’t make sense if
they have enough to pull faxes off of the fax machine. If you have ever used a fax machine, you will
be familiar with the horrific screeching noises it makes as it is trying to dial
and transmit. If you have never heard
this sound, you may have heard something similar if you had dial up internet
which you obtained from your phone line and a free AOL cd you got in the mail
back in the 90’s. The worst sound you
can hear after that is a busy signal.
This means the fax line is busy with other incoming or outgoing faxes
and your machine is going to re-dial…. Perhaps 800 times… before it goes
through. Which also means every 2
minutes and 22 seconds you get to hear the screeching “dialing” sounds
again. The good news is that after an
hour, it finally went through. The bad
news is that my eardrums have been irreparably damaged.
Exhibit number two of the “war” occurred today. Part of my job is to type letters from
dictation. These letters more often
than not require attachments, of which I have to make copies. We typically keep the originals and send a
copy in the mail with the letter to the party we are writing to. The originals, often court documents and
things of that nature, are usually stapled together, which means I have to
remove the staple prior to photocopying.
Simple enough? Not for me
apparently. Using a standard staple puller
you would find in any office, I grabbed the staple and tugged a bit to remove
it. At this point the staple usually
sticks to the puller or falls on my desk.
Not today! Today the staple flew
into the air and with the force, aerodynamics and precision of a missile shot
out of a fighter jet, went straight for my eye.
Sharp pointy end piercing my eye, then falling to the desk as if it
never happened. So maybe my friend
Jolene was right when she suggested there is a true war against women in the
workplace as office equipment and supplies attack them. I won’t let it discourage me. I am off to battle again tomorrow, but deep
down inside all I can think is “oh no! why?”
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